A method and software apparatus for a short-bidding auction manager is disclosed. One embodiment allows potential buyers to submit short-bids, so named because they fall short of an auction seller's asking price, and collects the short-bids on behalf of the auction seller. Additionally, a buyer may submit a bid that is higher or lower than previous bids. While short-bids are below what is considered acceptable, such bids may be reviewed and individually accepted by the seller, but the highest short-bid is considered the best short-bid offered since the seller intends to realize the most money from the sale. Meanwhile, one embodiment waits for auction completion and automatically consummates transactions for the highest above asking price bid or bids but at any point in time during the auction, short-bids and/or acceptable bids so far may be consummated before the auction ends.
|
2. A medium readable by a computer containing instructions that when performed by the computer provide a method for electronically managing auctions that include short-bidding, the method comprising:
creating an auction, which includes entering information about an item, setting a quantity for the item, and setting an asking price for the item, where the auction creating is performed via a seller user interface by a single seller;
placing a bid on the item, including setting a bid price, where the bit price may be any price regardless of the asking price for the item and regardless of any bid prices on other bids, if any, for the item, where the bid becomes a short-bid contract when the bid price is less than the asking price, and where the bid is placed via a bid creator user interface by any one of a potential number of purchasing bidders;
providing the seller with information on the short-bid contracts, if any, for the item, and receiving from the seller an indication of whether to accept any particular short-bid contract, where the providing and receiving are performed by the seller via a bid review user interface; and
executing a short-bid sale of the item in a particular short-bid contract upon receipt of the acceptance indication for the particular short-bid contract.
3. A system for electronically managing auctions that include short-bidding, the system comprising:
a memory device to store sets of instructions; and at least one possessor coupled with the memory device to execute the set of instructions, wherein the sets of instructions cause the at least one processor to:
implement an auction creator user interface configured to allow a single seller to create an auction by entering information about an item, by setting a quantity for the item, and by setting an asking price for the item;
implement a bid creator user interface configured to allow each one of a plurality of purchasing bidders to place a bid on the item, and to set a bid price regardless of the asking price for the item and regardless of any bid prices on other bids for the item, and where when the bid price is less than the asking price then the bid becomes a short-bid contract;
implement a bid reviewer user interface configured to provide the seller with information on the short-bid contracts, if any, for the item, and to receive from the seller an indication of whether to accept any particular short-bid contract; and
implement a sale executor configured to execute a short-bid sale on the item in the particular short-bid contract when the bid reviewer receives the acceptance indication for a particular short-bid contract.
1. A method for electronically managing auctions at auction websites over the internet that include short-bidding, the method comprising:
at an auction website, creating an auction, which includes entering information about an item, setting a quantity for the item, and setting an asking price for the item, where the auction creating is performed via a seller user interface by a single seller at a first client computer;
placing a bid on the item, including setting a bid price, where the bid price may be any price regardless of the asking price for the item and regardless of any bid prices on other bids, if any, for the item, where the bid becomes a short-bid contract when the bid price is less than the asking price, and where the bid is placed via a bid creator user interface by any one of a potential number of purchasing bidders at a second client computer;
providing the seller with information on the short-bid contracts, if any, for the item, and receiving from the seller an indication of whether to accept any particular short-bid contract, where the providing and receiving are performed by the seller via a bid review user interface at the first client computer; and
at the auction website, executing a short-bid sale of the item in a particular short-bid contract upon receipt of the acceptance indication for the particular short-bid contract.
4. The system of
5. The system of
6. The system of
7. The system of
8. The system of
9. The system of
10. The system of
11. The system of
the bid creator further allows any of the purchasing bidders to specify what the bid price will be during each of a specific time period of the auction
the bid reviewer is further configured to provide information selected from one or more of:
i) the active bids;
ii) the expired bids; or
iii) the bids with prices specified for the time periods of the auction.
12. The system of
13. The system of
14. The system of
|
The present invention pertains to electronic auction environments for sellers of a good for sale where purchasers bid on the good in attempts to buy the posted good. In particular, the present invention pertains to software apparatuses that track all bids for a seller of a good so that the seller can know at any point in time during the sale of a good, the price or prices that buyers are willing to pay for the item even when they are not willing to pay the posted price. All of this takes place during a live auction. When a bid is less than the price posted, this is known as a “Short-Bid”. Such software apparatuses are embodied as a Short-Bidding Auction Manager and associated software subsystems and files associated therewith.
Electronic Auctions have become commonplace with the many Auction portals deployed on the Web. Many Auction portals such as eBay, Yahoo, or uBid provide auction models for assisting sellers of large supplies of an item. eBay, for example, offers a “Dutch” Auction wherein the top N bidders will win the N quantity of a good for sale at auction.
A well-known drawback of common auction selling, in particular large or infinite supply selling is that often not all of a supply is sold. This often leaves the seller with inventory that he does not want. Meanwhile, many purchasers may have come to the auction posting and not bothered to bid because the starting bid price was a little or a lot too high for them. However, many potential purchasers would have bid if the price were even just a small amount less. The seller has no way of knowing that he could have sold more inventory if the price was lowered only a little.
The failure to sell inventory is even more interesting when the good being sold may be easily copied and/or downloaded an infinite number of times electronically. In this infinite supply case, the flexibility to drop the price on the good is much greater since copying bits is all that needs to be performed. The seller would definitely like to know what lower prices purchasers were willing to pay and make an intelligent decision on whether or not to let more copies be purchased and downloaded. While the profit on each additional copy sold is the price offered, the seller must balance this lowered price with the fact that word will spread that the electronic good was obtainable at the lowered prices. Similar decision processes are available to the large supplier of real goods as well. However, the decision and the timing of it is up to the seller. Current auction software apparatuses do not provide the means to determine what lower bidders would have been willing to pay. As a result, the seller has to guess what minimum price to set on a new auction, without any useful potential buyer information, in order to dump the rest of their inventory.
In light of the above, there is a need for methods and apparatus in an auction selling environment for the means to determine what purchasers would pay for a good even when they do not agree to the current minimum price. This will provide a greater opportunity for sellers to dispose of more inventory and allow them to decide on exactly which specific lower prices make sense for the seller.
Embodiments of the present invention advantageously satisfy the above-identified need in the art. In particular, one embodiment of the present invention recognizes that in order to determine what buyers are willing to pay for a good, the present invention must provide the means for buyers to enter bids no matter how low the bid is. The present invention provides the seller methods and apparatus to review and analyze current bids in order to determine if it makes sense for the seller to execute a transaction at a specific lower price.
Specifically, one embodiment of the present invention is a Short-Bidding Auction Manager that collects all potential purchaser “short-bids” on a good for sale at auction and provides the seller the ability to review and analyze some or all bids, the Short-Bidding Auction Manager comprising: (a) a User Account Manager and associated User Manager user interface that provides the means for buyer and sellers to join an auction website and establish pertinent personal information, wherein joining causes a user account to be created and stored in a User Accounts table (in Auction Database) with a unique user ID, and the user IDs are employed by users when buying and selling; (b) an Auction Creator with User Interface for sellers that allows sellers to post information about a good as well as set the quantity and the asking price for the good; (c) an Auction Item Manager that stores the properties of an auction in a database when it is created; (d) a Bid Creator with User Interface for buyers that allows buyers to set a price for a bid on an item which may be at the asking price or be a short-bid which is less than the asking price and which becomes a contract to buy once submitted; (e) a Bid Reviewer User Interface for sellers that provides the list of short-bid contracts for the seller to review; (f) a Bid Manager that executes a sale if a bid is at the asking price posted for a good, while it collects and tracks all short-bids as bid contracts no matter how low the price bid is; (g) a Sale Executor that executes a sale between buyer and seller when a bid is placed at the asking price or when the seller decides to accept a short-bid, wherein executing a sale comprises notification to buyer and seller that the buyer's submittal of a contract to buy must be executed; (h) an Email Notifier that sends emails to sellers and buyers constituting the notifications generated; (i) an Auction Database that stores the User Accounts, current Auction items, current Bids, Auction History, and Bid History.
In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, a Short-Bidding Auction Manager 100 enables sellers to know what potential buyers will pay for a good, real or electronic, and subsequently and immediately execute on that knowledge if and when desired. In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present invention, the advantageously obtained knowledge is realized by providing the means to make each bid contractual and by providing the means to collect and track each bid so that some or all may be executed on at the seller's discretion.
The following detailed description of embodiments of the present invention employs the diagrams in
A Short-Bidding Auction Manager 100 fabricated in accordance with the present invention must have methods and apparatus for presenting interactive user interface screens.
A Short-Bidding Auction Manager fabricated in accordance with the present invention must have methods and apparatus for user account management. The user account manager 110 comprises a collection of user interfaces for registering as a new user, logging in, and editing one's user account details. One embodiment captures a human readable User ID that will identify each user as unique. These User IDs are the monikers employed to identify buyers and sellers in auctions. Most embodiments will also maintain name information and an email address. More elaborate embodiments may include mailing address and phone numbers. Embodiments that manage payments immediately will also take banking and/or credit card information. While
A Short-Bidding Auction Manager fabricated in accordance with the present invention provides sellers the ability to create new auctions for items using a user interface screen 200 like the one pictured in
The most notable screen components (
One embodiment of the present invention provides a “show highest short-bids” checkbox 203, as shown in the bottom left of
Most embodiments of the present invention will employ a derivative of the Auction Creator user interface screen to represent a very similar Auction Editor user interface screen. Such a screen will allow the seller to modify any or all auction details for an item. The posted auction item price may even be increased or decreased. Note that a decrease should cause embodiments of the present invention to execute sales transactions for any short-bids that are at the new lesser price.
One embodiment of the present invention provides methods and apparatus for deleting or terminating an auction.
One embodiment of the present invention provides methods and apparatus for recording any or all salient events about an auction such as when it was created, when it ended, bid statistics, sales statistics, when it was modified and what was modified. Such embodiments include user interface screens for reviewing auction history (704 and 705).
One embodiment of the present invention has an Auction Item Manager 106 like the one pictured in
One embodiment of the present invention will have an Email Notifier 112 like the one pictured in
One embodiment of the present invention employs a Bid Creator user interface screen 300 like the one depicted in
One embodiment of the present invention hides the time intervals and future bid adjustments from the seller of the auction item. Other embodiments may desire to provide this information to the seller or have a checkbox that allows it to be the buyer's decision. Those skilled in the art may employ other variations.
When a new bid is placed with the “Place Bid” pushbutton 309, one embodiment of the present invention invokes a Bid Manager 107 as shown in
One embodiment of the present invention stores each short-bid in a Bids Table 703 where each Bid record maintains an Auction ID column in order to view which specific bids belong to which specific auction.
One embodiment of the present invention provides methods and apparatus for recording every bid and writing them to the “Bid History” table 705 wherein one column of each written Bid History record contains the Auction ID it belongs to. Such embodiments also include user interface screens for reviewing bid history.
One embodiment of the present invention provides methods and apparatus for recording every sale executed in the “Bid History” Table 705. Such embodiments also include user interface screens for reviewing sales history.
One embodiment of the present invention employs a Sale Executor 108 as shown in
Embodiments may provide infrastructure and user interface screens for allowing sellers and buyers to rate each other for their transactions once they complete (see 302, 405, 505). Such ratings must be stored in the auction database and be available for subsequent bidder or seller filtering. In particular, some sellers may want to sell or not sell to specific bidders based on their rating even when they submit an attractively high short-bid. Various approaches for transaction rating management are well-known to those skilled in the art.
One embodiment of the present invention comprises the ability to sell electronic goods. Embodiments may provide selling of electronic goods where sellers manage the electronic good download at a separate external site 210, or may provide an Electronic Goods Manager 601 as depicted in the extended internal subsystems diagram of
Embodiments of the present invention supporting electronically downloadable goods can include an URL in completed sales transaction email notifications so that the buyer can click on it to download the good. Such embodiments may incorporate security methods and apparatus to guarantee that only the specific buyer can access the download. Secure approaches include unique download IDs in the URL, requiring the use to login again with the unique downioad ID, and providing the downloadable electronic good for only a limited time. Various secure approaches may be employed and are familiar to those skilled in the art.
One embodiment of the present invention comprises a Bid Reviewer user interface screen 400 as shown in
One embodiment of the present invention provides the seller an “update review list” pushbutton 404, as shown in
One embodiment of the present invention provides methods and apparatus for using the Email Notifier 112 to send updated short-bid reports periodically or when a new bid is submitted. Such embodiments may provide an additional short-bid review reports notification configuration user interface screen in order to establish the frequency and/or the configuration of the report.
More sophisticated embodiments of the present invention may choose to provide method and apparatus for customizing what information is displayed in the “Review Bids” list.
One embodiment of the present invention comprises a Bid Analyzer user interface screen 500 as shown in
One embodiment of the present invention provides the seller an “update analysis” pushbutton 504, as shown in
One embodiment of the present invention links the Bid Analyzer user interface screen 500 to the Bid Reviewer screen 400 so that sales may be executed immediately after analysis.
One embodiment of the present invention combines the Bid Reviewer and Bid Analyzer into one user interface screen.
Those skilled in the art will recognize that the foregoing description has been presented for the sake of illustration and description only. As such, it is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed.
Seidman, Glenn R., Perleschi, Shawn
Patent | Priority | Assignee | Title |
10247481, | Jan 28 2013 | Carrier Corporation | Multiple tube bank heat exchange unit with manifold assembly |
10337799, | Nov 25 2013 | Carrier Corporation | Dual duty microchannel heat exchanger |
7797202, | Feb 20 2007 | ASIAN ATLANTIC INDUSTRIES, INC ; ASIAN ALTANTIC INDUSTRIES, INC | Method of masking the identities of both a bidder and seller in an auction |
8775267, | Sep 22 2010 | BRIDGEWELL, INCORPORATED | Collaborative bargaining |
Patent | Priority | Assignee | Title |
7130815, | Nov 16 1999 | ARIBA, INC | Method and system for conducting reserve request reverse auctions for electronic commerce |
20020038282, | |||
20020147675, | |||
20040024682, | |||
20050131809, |
Executed on | Assignor | Assignee | Conveyance | Frame | Reel | Doc |
Sep 20 2011 | SIEDMAN, GLENN R | OMEGAOFFER LLC | CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE ASSIGNEE S ADDRESS PREVIOUSLY RECORD 027286 FRAME 0347 | 029683 | /0456 | |
Sep 20 2011 | PERLESCHI, SHAWN | OMEGAOFFER LLC | CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT TO CORRECT THE ASSIGNEE S ADDRESS PREVIOUSLY RECORD 027286 FRAME 0347 | 029683 | /0456 | |
Sep 20 2011 | SEIDMAN, GLENN R | OMEGAOFFER LLC | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 027286 | /0347 | |
Sep 20 2011 | PERLESCHI, SHAWN | OMEGAOFFER LLC | ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS | 027286 | /0347 |
Date | Maintenance Fee Events |
Mar 04 2013 | M2551: Payment of Maintenance Fee, 4th Yr, Small Entity. |
Apr 21 2017 | REM: Maintenance Fee Reminder Mailed. |
Aug 31 2017 | M2552: Payment of Maintenance Fee, 8th Yr, Small Entity. |
Aug 31 2017 | M2555: 7.5 yr surcharge - late pmt w/in 6 mo, Small Entity. |
Apr 26 2021 | REM: Maintenance Fee Reminder Mailed. |
Sep 07 2021 | M2553: Payment of Maintenance Fee, 12th Yr, Small Entity. |
Sep 07 2021 | M2556: 11.5 yr surcharge- late pmt w/in 6 mo, Small Entity. |
Date | Maintenance Schedule |
Sep 08 2012 | 4 years fee payment window open |
Mar 08 2013 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Sep 08 2013 | patent expiry (for year 4) |
Sep 08 2015 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 4) |
Sep 08 2016 | 8 years fee payment window open |
Mar 08 2017 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Sep 08 2017 | patent expiry (for year 8) |
Sep 08 2019 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 8) |
Sep 08 2020 | 12 years fee payment window open |
Mar 08 2021 | 6 months grace period start (w surcharge) |
Sep 08 2021 | patent expiry (for year 12) |
Sep 08 2023 | 2 years to revive unintentionally abandoned end. (for year 12) |